The Sword of Moses (43 page)

Max and one of the men moved quickly out of the temple and into the opposite room. In no time, she could hear the sound of them banging the stonework.

Turning back to the temple, she looked around with increasing desperation.

Where was it?

It had to be here.

Think!

The space was small. There were not that many places it could be.

Where would the Vatican hide it?

She tried to focus on the clues again.

Where would she hide it?

It was definitely in the Basilica di San Clemente—she was sure of that. And there could be no doubt the mithraeum was the third level down, and the home of the bloody bull.

So what was missing?

Beads of perspiration began to appear on her face.

A little voice of doubt deep inside began to gnaw away at her.

Had she made a terrible mistake?

She reassured herself immediately. She was absolutely sure she had not made any errors this time.

So where was it?

“Twelve minutes gone,” Ferguson announced grimly. “Three remaining.”

She thought again of the clues. She had been over them a thousand times.

Were there any weaknesses in her solution?

She looked up again at the barrel ceiling. It was just bare stone now, but seventeen hundred years ago it was painted a deep midnight blue and spangled with gleaming stars.

So she knew she was right.

It had to be here—‘under the protection of the stars’.

“Two minutes left,” announced Ferguson, a sense of urgency creeping into his voice.

Ava stared around the room with increasing desperation.

What had she overlooked?

Looking upwards again, she suddenly froze.

Of course!

‘UNDER THE PROTECTION OF THE STARS’ depended which side of the stars you were. From where she was standing, ‘under’ could mean behind.

In the roof.

“Check the ceiling,” she shouted breathlessly, staring up and flooding the space above her with the bright light from her head lamp. The Vatican could have concealed it in a roof chamber, hidden behind the stars, brick, and plaster.

The men began testing the small barrelled ceiling with their tools, probing it for signs of hollow cavities or irregular thickness.

It did not take them long. One by one they turned to Ava and shook their heads.

She pushed back the safety helmet and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

This was not happening.

She was running out of options fast.

Max had returned from the antechamber. His expression said it all.

“Check the schoolroom at the end of the corridor.” She pointed him in the direction of the room with the seven niches, and he set off quickly with a team of two.

She watched as the beams of light from their helmets disappeared down the narrow corridor, before she turned back to focus on the temple itself.

The only object in the room she had not investigated was the square pedestal with the bas-relief of Mithras standing proudly in the centre of the room.

It was a nonstarter—much too small to hold the Menorah, or even part of it.

She had not given it much attention, but as she looked at it, she realized it was actually one of the best preserved tauroctony scenes she had ever seen—beautifully carved, its edges still sharp and defined, standing out in crisp relief against the shadows cast by the LED light from her head-lamp.

She would love to have taken a photo for Cyrus. Mithras was standing triumphantly, his Phrygian cap firmly wedged on his tousle-haired head, his cloak billowing dramatically behind him as he sliced the throat of the bull with his wide-bladed knife. The paint had come off centuries ago, but when the carving was new it would have been spangled in bright colours—the dun brown of the bull, the green of the leaves growing from its tail, the silver of the knife, the midnight blue and gold of the stars under his cloak … .

Oh God.

Ava stopped dead. Poleaxed.

“Quick!” she shouted, her voice catching in her throat. “In here. Move this pedestal.” She ran to the doorway and yelled down the corridor. Max reappeared quickly with the other gasman.

“What is it?” Ferguson asked, hurrying over to her. “What’ve you found?”

“The underside of his cloak,” She half choked, her voice hoarse with excitement. “It would’ve been painted with stars. Dozens of them. But it rubbed off centuries ago.” She paused, gulping in a breath. “The Menorah is under here. Under this pedestal.
Under the protection of the stars.
”

She leant her shoulder hard up against the cold stone and pushed with all her might, joining the four gasmen and Ferguson, shoving for all they were worth.

Ferguson’s watch started beeping as the countdown hit zero. “Out of time,” he announced through clenched teeth, the veins bulging on his neck.

“Come on!” Ava grunted, straining to move the slab of stone, perspiration breaking out on her face.

The men redoubled their efforts, and together they all gave a massive shove.

With a sudden lurch, the stone pedestal came free from the grit and grime that had glued it in place for so long.

Manoeuvring it carefully, they pushed it clear of the single large flagstone on which it was set.

Reaching for the toolbox, Ava grabbed a thick crowbar and a short-handled lump-hammer.

Placing the crowbar’s sharp chisel-tip over a fine line of Roman cement binding the flag in place, she lifted the hammer high over her head.

She felt Ferguson’s hand on her shoulder. “Are you sure you want to do that?” He sounded anxious. “This floor is a Roman antique.”

“Not this bit, if I’m right,” she answered, smashing the hammer down hard onto the head of the crowbar, splintering the cement with the force of the blow. “I’m willing to bet this is a medieval repair to the original floor—sealed after they hid the Menorah.”

She prayed she was not wrong.

Moving the crowbar around the flagstone, she pounded it deep into the cement on all sides, smashing the bonding into tiny fragments.

“Sixteen minutes gone. One minute over,” Ferguson announced, gazing anxiously at Ava.

“Nearly done.” She was breathing hard from the exertion, wiping the sweat out of her eyes as she punched the crowbar deep into the near-side crack, forcing the tip several inches under the flagstone.

Leaning hard on the bar with all her weight, she tried to prise up the flagstone. Lacking sufficient leverage, she worked it further under the stone, and began rocking it.

As the flagstone slowly lifted, she jemmied it up off the ground, her muscles starting to tremble with the exertion. As she got it high enough for the men to help, Ferguson and Max moved in beside her. They grabbed hold of the flag’s edge and, straining with the weight, swung it up and out of the way.

All eyes swivelled expectantly to what was underneath, bathing the area in the torchlight from six lamps.

Nothing
.

It was just more dirt.

“Damn it!” Ferguson turned away, his voice wracked with disappointment.

He looked at his watch. “Seventeen minutes gone. Two over.” He sounded flat with resignation. “We’ve got to go. The emergency services are probably already outside.”

The gasmen moved towards the tool case to begin packing up.

Ava held up her hand. “Wait.” Her voice rang clear around the room.

She could feel a stillness, as all eyes turned to her, spotlighting her in their head beams.

There was silence.

She placed both hands firmly on Ferguson’s left shoulder. Leaning on him hard, she lifted her right knee high, then stamped the heel of her boot down hard with all her force onto the dusty square of earth.

There was a loud splintering sound as a thin layer of wood gave way, and her boot disappeared into a void, closely followed by the sound of dirt and chips of broken wood hitting a stone floor several yards below.

——————— ◆ ———————

La Gioconda Caf
é

Maze Hill

London SE10

England

The United Kingdom

Uri did not have to wait long for a response. Whoever had placed the advertisement for Mr Moses’s piece of old luggage was monitoring the telephone number closely.

When the reply came, it was just one word.

URIM

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Good
.

At least he had not responded to some old person’s personal travel tragedy.

He typed the reply quickly.

THUMMIM

It was one of Moshe’s favourite identification pairs.

The old man had been appalled when Uri confessed he had no idea what the words actually meant. Moshe had told him firmly that his ignorance was shameful, and he should look them up.

Uri figured he would get round to it one of these days.

He looked around the café, listening to the rain’s insistent hammering on the large windows.

A queue was beginning to form by the glass cabinets at the far end of the room—the early lunchtime takeaway crowd, hungry for generous sandwiches with a Mediterranean twist.

Turning back to his phone, he initiated a second pair of identifiers to double check the identity of the person at the other end. He punched the single word in quickly.

YAEL

The answer came back within seconds.

JUDITH

Uri smiled.

So far so good.

He liked that pair. Strong biblical names. Heroines. Both killers.

He nodded at the pretty dark-haired waitress approaching his table with a pot of steaming coffee. She looked good in her black skirt and clingy white top. She refilled his cup and smiled at him, her dark eyes crinkling around a proud Italian nose that had not changed for millennia.

He did not return the smile. He was in England for one purpose only—and it did not include distractions. Anyway, he wondered, who was she kidding? Any man she smiled at would have to go through an interview committee of her extended family before he even found out her name.

His phone buzzed again as the person on the other end now initiated the third and final pair of identifiers—a multi-word sequence indicating a heightened level of security required for the most sensitive communications.

IRGUN AND LEHI

Uri knew the responses by heart to all the current fifty-odd pairs of identifiers. He typed quickly.

ANONYMOUS SOLDIERS

Taking a bite of bread and olives, he reflected that he had no way of actually knowing who was on the other end of the phone. It may have been Moshe himself. But it could just as easily be someone Moshe wanted him to connect with. That person could be in Tel Aviv, or sitting at the table next to him in the café.

Still, it made no difference. Given the correct wording of the newspaper advertisement and the faultless progression through the three levels of identifiers, it was safe to conclude this was an official communication. There was no need to go into the complexities of one-time pads and other mathematically driven randomizing codes and ciphers. They had their place, of course, but for the purposes of identification in the field, the pairs were sufficient. The likelihood of anyone else guessing them accurately was infinitesimally small.

There was always the possibility the codes had been compromised, of course. But that was a permanent feature of life. Unless there was any reason to suspect they had been blown, Uri was to assume all was fine—standard operating procedure.

Finishing the bread and olives, he wiped his hands on the paper napkin and waited for whatever was coming.

In less than a minute, the cheap black phone buzzed again.

He picked it up and pressed a button to wake the screen.

Scrolling through the incoming message, it would have struck anyone else as meaningless gibberish—three unrelated sentences placed together randomly and incoherently.

OLD LONDON STATION

BETWEEN THE PILLARS

IS THERE NO PITY FOR THE WIDOW’S SON?

This time, he did allow himself a smile.

It was definitely an official message. It was an old joke in the Institute.

He knew exactly what it meant, and what he had to do.

He took a final mouthful of coffee and got up, tucking the newspapers under his arm.

Rifling through his pockets, he pulled out what he owed for the breakfast, and left it along with a tip on the chequered tablecloth.

Someone had left a present for him in London. All he had to do now was to go and get it.

——————— ◆ ———————

The Mithraeum

Basilica di San Clemente

Via Labicana

Rione Monti

Rome

The Republic of Italy

Ava turned to Ferguson. “What did I tell you?” Her eyes were shining wildly. “I knew it was here!”

But before she had finished the sentence, he was already on his knees with the lump hammer, smashing away the remainder of the thin wooden covering.

She knelt down beside him, her heart pounding fit to burst. As she gazed across at him, splintering away the remaining wood, she began to feel dizzy with nerves.

If she was wrong about the Menorah being down there, she strongly suspected her archaeological career was over. Breaking into a seventeen-hundred-year-old mithraeum and demolishing its floor without permission would not be well received by the Baghdad museum authorities. And when word of it got around her colleagues, it was unlikely to win her any future job offers.

But as she peered down into the inky blackness, she was equally overwhelmed by the thought that the real Menorah might actually be down there—waiting, just feet from where she was kneeling.

She grabbed the crowbar and joined Ferguson, chipping away at the jagged edges of the wooden opening, clearing a hole large enough to see what was below.

If the Menorah truly was there, it would be one of the greatest archaeological finds of all time.

Unearthing fabled artefacts had been what drew her to archaeology in the first place. But she had long since abandoned thoughts of discovering any of history’s truly iconic objects. Instead, long hours in libraries and down sandy holes in the Middle East had replaced her early dreams with the wonders of discovering more day-to-day items—jewels and writings, weapons and ceremonial objects. These had become her all-consuming reality. And they had delivered all she wanted. And more.

But now, peering down into the dark musty chamber, she was acutely aware that part of her was reassessing that view.

In that moment, she knew that more than anything else she wanted the Menorah to be there. And she yearned to be the one to discover it.

Getting close to the Ark had whetted her appetite for the unthinkable.

A bitter feeling rose in her throat as she recalled her failure with the Ark. Not only had she not found or examined the Ark, she had not even seen it. And now Malchus had it.

She would not let that happen again.

Craning her neck to illuminate the chamber below, at first she could see nothing. The bright beam from her head lamp only picked up the thick lattices of centuries of cobwebs, shrouded in the waves of dust billowing in the disturbed air.

But as she circled the beam around the chamber, she thought she saw something in the far left corner.

“There!” She angled her head to illuminate the area. “Do you see it?”

Ferguson directed his head lamp to the same place as hers.

She peered through the gloom, straining to see more closely, but the cobwebs and dust were obscuring the view, preventing her seeing any more clearly.

Maybe it had just been her eyes playing tricks on her.

Dangling the crowbar into the hole, she let go of it.

The metal landed with a loud clunk—the noise cannoning around the underground chamber. “Good.” She looked down at it resting on the flagstones beneath. “Solid floor.”

“Are you coming, then?” she asked, swinging her lower body into the void.

Before Ferguson had time to answer, she had let go, and felt herself falling several feel to hit the hard floor below.

A moment later, Ferguson landed behind her. “Is this the room where they drenched the initiates in bull’s blood, then?”

She barely heard him, as she picked up the crowbar and moved quickly towards the chamber’s far corner. As she neared it, the dancing beams from their head torches began to pick out what she was now sure was a solid shape, veiled behind the sheets of cobwebs and caked in centuries of dust and grime.

It was about waist height, and spiky looking.

Approaching it, Ava’s heart was in her mouth.

Stretching her arm forward, she pulled apart the last curtain of cobwebs with the crowbar.

As she did, she could hear the rushing sound in her ears again, but this time knew it was the blood and adrenaline hammering round her system and not the Roman plumbing.

Focusing on the object in front of her, she felt lightheaded.

There was no mistaking it.

Although blackened with dust and filth, it was unmistakeably a seven-branched candlestick.

She goggled at it, wide-eyed, taking in its shape and the reality of what she was looking at.

Reaching out a hand to touch it, an electrical charge of excitement pulsed through her at the sensation of the cold metal under her fingers.

There was no doubt in her mind.

This was the Menorah from King Solomon
’s Temple.

She tried to speak, but no words came out. Her mouth made several shapes, but her windpipe caught the escaping air, preventing it getting through to her vocal folds.

“So what do you think?” Ferguson was staring at it critically. “It doesn’t look much like the Menorah.”

Ava snapped out of it. “What?” she mumbled, her mind coming back into focus. “Doesn’t look like the Menorah? Yes. Oh yes it does.”

Her body was flooding with emotions. She was finding it hard to process the fact she was standing in front of the Menorah. All her suppressed fantasies of one day finding an object like this came bubbling up in a fountain of awestruck elation.

“Are you sure?” He sounded increasingly uncertain.

She was aware of a grin opening up across her face. One she was finding very hard to control. “No. I’m not sure. I’m
positive
.” She answered breathlessly, steadying her voice. She was certain of it. “I’ll bet my life on it.”

“I know you’re the archaeologist,” he replied, “but it just doesn’t, well—it doesn’t … look like what I was expecting.” He trailed off, sounding uncertain.

“You mean like in pictures?” she asked.

Ferguson nodded. “Or the carving on the Arch of Titus.”

“You’ve been doing your homework,” she smiled.

“Well, I’ve done a little research of my own,” Ferguson gazed at it. “The Arch of Titus—which is only about six hundred and fifty yards from here, by the way—has a carving of Roman soldiers looting the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70. It shows them carrying off a load of booty, including the Menorah.”

“And on that carving, the Menorah looks like this?” Ava scraped the tip of the crowbar through the deep dust on the floor, outlining a rough shape.

“That’s it,” agreed Ferguson. “Exactly.”

“And you’re correct,” Ava could barely contain her excitement. “Which is why this one,” she nodded towards the candlestick, “
is
the real one.”

“But it looks nothing like it,” objected Ferguson.

“The picture on the Arch of Titus is a red herring.” She stepped closer to the candlestick. “It was carved over ten years after Titus sacked Jerusalem in AD 70. But records say the candlestick he looted was a replacement, made by the Maccabees after the Syrian-Greek warlord Antiochus Epiphanes plundered the Temple and took the real one in 168 BC.”

Ferguson looked nonplussed.

“Although you’re right,” Ava continued. “All the world’s thousands of Menorah images assume it has round arms, just like on the Arch of Titus.”

“So how can this be the real one?” Taking the crowbar from Ava, he did his own drawing in the dust on the floor. “If I’m not mistaken,” he nodded towards the candlestick, “our one here looks like this.” He finished drawing it in the sand, and stood back.

Ava nodded. “Correct. For over a thousand years, pictures have shown it with round arms. But the oldest known carving of the Menorah was recently found in Israel, in the ancient synagogue of Magdala—a village now famous as the home of Mary Magdalene. The carving was done by someone who had probably seen the original, or who was following an early Jewish tradition. It’s the most reliable evidence available.”

“Go on.” Ferguson was looking at her with interest. “What did it show?”

Ava pointed at Ferguson’s drawing. “That.” She pulled more of the cobwebs off the candlestick, revealing the shape of the grimy arms more clearly. “See? They’re angled.”

“You think that’s the genuine shape?” Ferguson still sounded dubious. “You reckon everyone’s got it wrong all these centuries?”

“Definitely.” Ava lifted her helmet slightly to wipe the sweat off her brow. “Think about it. Everyone has always believed it had round arms. So why would a forger, if this is a medieval forgery, make a fake with anything other than round arms? Or look at it the other way. How would a medieval forger know to make angled arms if our knowledge of the angled Magdala Menorah carving only dates from a few years ago?”

Ferguson still looked uncertain. “But how come the image on the Vatican medal has round arms, if the Vatican had seen this original?”

Ava began to rub at the grime on one of the arms. “I’m willing to bet the Vatican didn’t want to publicize what the Menorah really looked like, as people would ask questions. After all, according to the story, the Vatican wanted to hide it and pretend the Knights Templar had never given it to them. So they perpetuated the myth of the round arms.”

As the black grime came away under Ava’s finger, a patch of dull yellow metal appeared.

Ferguson let out a long low whistle. “So—this really is the Menorah, then.” He sounded stunned, as the reality began to sink in.

“I truly believe it is,” Ava answered in a low voice, gazing at the sacred candlestick.

As she peered at it, she could see the Magdala carving was exactly right. Even down to the base, which was not built up of square slabs to give the effect of a stepped plinth, as on the Arch of Titus. Instead, it was a plain pyramid, out of which the trunk of the candlestick grew directly.

But it was the arms that continued to fascinate her. She pictured in her mind’s eye the drawing by Maimonides, the Jewish sage of medieval Córdoba in Spain, who had depicted the arms as sprouting straight up, like the branches on a wrapped-up Christmas tree. That image had always intrigued her. But now she could see that even he was clearly wrong, although closer than anyone else.

She could not wait to get it cleaned up to examine it properly.

It would answer so many questions about the early history of the Hebrews. Exactly how old was it? Were there any inscriptions on it? Was it an original Hebrew object, or had it been captured from another people and adopted? Was it all original, or a composite built over time? Where did the gold come from? Was it really melted-down possessions and jewellery as the Bible said, or did it originate from an identifiable mine? Did it show signs of foreign workmanship, like the Temple of Solomon itself, made with skill and labour from pagan Lebanon?

“So—angled arms, then? Who’s going to tell the people who make the Israeli flag?” Ferguson joked.

Not to mention everyone else.

She had not even begun to think of the disputes this would cause. She had not had time to consider very much beyond keeping it safe—away from Malchus.

And who would claim it?

Ownership of so many of the world’s great artefacts was disputed—often for centuries. She had learnt to her frustration that museums employed armies of lawyers to build complicated arguments that took decades to sort out.

No doubt ownership of the Menorah would be a major ongoing headache. Many groups would claim it—the Basilica di San Clemente, the Vatican, the city of Rome, Israel, one or more Templar orders—the possibilities were endless. There was potential for decades of litigation.

“Christ.” She slapped Ferguson’s shoulder as she snapped out of her reverie. “What’s the time? We’ve got to get out of here.”

He hurriedly looked at his watch. “You don’t want to know. Twenty minutes. We’re five minutes over.”

“We have to move.
Now
.” She was already halfway across the room, standing underneath the hole in the roof up to the mithraeum above.